1920.] 



SOCIAL LIFE IN GUERNSEY. 263 



whole tragedy. The dismal departure from the Castle of the 

 solitary boat in which the trembling wretches, under the 

 charge of the Sheriff,* 1 ) were rowed for the last time, in sight 

 of a crowd of beholders who invariably cqngregated and lined 

 the pier in awestruck silence, was followed by the pathetic 

 lauding, where the King's officers were waiting in readiness 

 with the Bordiers, W carrying their official hallebards or iron 

 pikes. These Bordiers were the owners of fields liable to the 

 service of Bordage. They had not only to escort criminals 

 from prison to the Court House, but also to the place of 

 punishment — either the Cage, the Pillory, the Gribbet, or the 

 Stake. 



In this case, on leaving the Court the dismal procession 

 will have filed up to Tower Hill, where three stakes were set 

 up, the mother being placed in the middle. They were first 

 strangled, but the rope broke before they were dead and they 

 were cast into the flames, and to Perotine Massey, in that 

 raging furnace, a male child was born. He was picked out 

 alive from the flames by a bystander — the master gunner and 

 surgeon " cannonier et cirugien" of the island — called William 

 House, and was brought by the Sheriff to the Bailiff, who said 

 he was to be cast back into the flames. And by so saying has 

 insured eternal infamy for his memory. 



Harding, ^Father Parsons the Jesuit, and others have 

 endeavoured to contradict these facts, but they are confirmed, 

 not only by the official records at the Greffe and the detailed 

 trial reported in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, but by a Petition 

 presented in 1562, to Her Majesty's Commissioners by 

 Matthew Cauches, brother to Catherine, embodying the above 

 statements, gathered, as he says, " By the faithfull relation 

 both of French and English, of them which were then present, 

 witnesses and lookers on ; " pointing out that the verdict was 

 due to " malicious hatred " by the Dean and his accomplices 

 who had " illegally condemned his sister and his two nieces for 

 heresy, they declaring all the time their innocence, and, 



(1) 18 Mars 1582. " Sur le different d'entre Pierre Careye comme Prevost et 



Fouck Masson comme Portier an Chateau Cornet — il a est© verifie qui d'ancien- 

 nete le Portier — a accoutume de venir avec le prisonnier lors qu'il estoyt amene 

 en justice — lequel criminal le dit Prevost est de son office oblige d'aller qiierir au 

 Chateau et le presenter en justice. Et s'il est question qu'il soyt renvoye prison- 

 nier, de la conduire jusqu'au bateau au Chateau et le delivrer pour estre ramene 

 prisonnier — mais si par l'impetuosite du temps on ne pourroyt passer pour 

 conduire le criminel du Chateau, le dit Prevost est tenu le garder surement jusqu'a 

 l'avoyr rendu dereschef en prison." 



(2) In 1607 Queen Elizabeth's Commissioners noted "The said Bordiers 



doe make iheir personal appearance at every Court of Chief Pleas, and are to 

 attend also upon the King's Court at the Pleas of Inheritance, three of them every 

 Court day by turne, and to guard all felons and malefactors at the time of their 

 trlall and execution, of which last services some of the said Bordiers doe com- 

 plaine." 



The office was abolished in 1857. 



(3) Rejoinder against M. Jewel, p. 184, 



